Sex Determination in Vertebrates

Blanche Capel, PhD, is a James B. Duke Professor of Cell Biology at Duke University Medical Center. Her graduate training was in mouse genetics and stem cell biology with Beatrice Mintz at Fox Chase Cancer Center, followed by postdoctoral research in the Lovell-Badge laboratory at NIMR, Mill Hill, London, leading to the discovery of Sry, the male sex-determining gene in mammals. Work from her laboratory has centered on sex determination, the cell fate and patterning decisions that underlie the development of the bipotential gonad into either a testis or an ovary, and the commitment of germ cells to spermatogonial or oogonial fate. She was the recipient of an NIH Merit Award in 2012, the Pioneer Award from Frontiers in Reproduction in 2015, and the Founders Award from the Australia Society for Reproductive Biology in 2016. She has served on the advisory boards of the Jackson Laboratory, FASEB, the Society for the Study of Reproduction, as President of the Society for Developmental Biology, and as a member of the COUNCIL of UNESCO’s International Cell Research Organization. She directs the Development and Stem Cell Biology graduate program at Duke, and is currently an Associate Editor for WIREs and Developmental Biology, and a reviewing editor for Science. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011.